Map of Osaka Kobe Kyoto

Here’s a reality that should be fairly obvious we live in a world where social and commercial interaction is quickly changing. This is the age of the internet, after all. This is the age of online bookstores replacing brick and mortar stores and of consumers now being able to order everything online from cars to groceries. This is the age of Overstock.com and eBay and Amazon and the multitude of other successful, vibrant online businesses that seem to multiply every day.

Indeed, the customer who walks into a store or business has increasingly been replaced by the faceless customer who browses a website or online catalogue. And the question to ask is this: what have been some of the major consequences as a result of this still relatively new and certainly significant shift in the customer-business relationship?

As many businesses have learned – especially those who predominantly operate online – providing strong, knowledgeable and – most importantly – personable customer service has become increasingly important. Of course, excellent service has always been a priority. But, now, when the major interaction between a business and a customer comes via a website, customers oftentimes have only one way to relate on a human level with a given business. And that way is through the customer’s interaction with the business’s customer support team.

Many companies understand just how important their customer service teams are to their success, and with that understanding, many have made concerted efforts to find new and better ways to improve the strength of their customer representative teams. Some have focused on the latest technology and newest CRMs. Other businesses have been less technology-focused and more interested in maintaining the knowledge of their customer support teams through better, more advanced training initiatives.

In speaking about customer service teams and their contribution to business success, there’s no better company to consider than the national travel and benefits provider, TicketsatWork. TicketsatWork offers travel and entertainment discounts to employees of corporations across the country. Think of Walt Disney World®, Universal Orlando®, or Sea World® — employees of companies who have become members of TicketsatWork’s discount program gain access to discounted tickets to hundreds of these kinds of attractions. The company offers these discounts through its memberonly website, TicketsatWork.com, where employees can browse the company’s vast catalogue of entertainment and travel options, search for tickets and take advantage of special offers only available to TicketsatWork members.

As an online-based company that strives to give its customers the highest quality of customer service, TicketsatWork operates call centers in its two primary business hubs Orlando and Las Vegas. This is also why management at TicketsatWork stresses the importance of a standard orientation period that every one of its customer representatives must participate in. In a particularly intriguing move, TicketsatWork even has members from its partnership companies, like Disney World® and Sea World®, come in to its offices to describe to its customer representatives the various products and services that are available to its members.

When it comes to continued improvement within their customer service representative teams, TicketsatWork’s management significantly values training. This is a takeaway that perhaps other online businesses can benefit from. Management at the company understands the importance of call monitoring and call collaborating, and providing their representatives with immediate, real-time feedback on the quality of their calls with TicketsatWork customers.

For TicketsatWork, maintaining the strength of its customer support teams is not about establishing a formula or about implementing the latest and most expensive CRM technology it’s about making sure that their representatives are well-trained and knowledgeable, and that its customers receive the highest quality customer service they can.